Settling an Old Score - Delores Fossen Page 0,51

“I’m in hiding. Someone wants to kill me. That’s why I sneaked out of the barn and went on the run.”

Eli huffed. “You’re sure you didn’t run because you’re guilty of the attacks?”

“No.” Remy didn’t hesitate that time. “I didn’t have anything to do with them, I swear.”

“Don’t hold your breath waiting for me to believe you about that. You stole Marta’s body, then hid it, and you’re on the run from the law. That’s three strikes in my book, and it doesn’t add up to someone I intend to trust. Now, where the hell are you?”

“I don’t want to tell you because I don’t trust you, either. You haven’t done your job and fixed this. Someone was following me, and after everything that’s happened, that person might want me dead, too. Who’s doing this, Eli? Who wants to murder us?”

Eli wasn’t buying into Remy’s denial, but the man certainly sounded afraid. Of course, fear could be faked, and Remy had a strong motive for wanting to kill him. Maybe Remy had stretched that motive to include Ashlyn as well, but if so, Remy was also coming after the baby, since she was in the middle of this mess.

“You need to arrest whoever’s trying to kill us. Until you do that, I’m protecting myself, and it starts by not telling you where I am. Find him, Eli, or I will,” Remy warned him, and he ended the call.

Eli groaned, and even though he knew Remy hadn’t been on the line long enough, he called dispatch anyway. “Nothing,” Eli had to relay to Ashlyn once he had his answer. “They weren’t able to trace it.”

Frustrated, he put his phone back in his pocket and mentally replayed everything Remy had just told him. Which wasn’t much. However, if Remy did indeed try to play cop and find their attacker, then he could put himself right in the path of a killer. If Remy wasn’t the killer, that is. If he was, then his call had merely been an attempt to make himself look innocent.

It hadn’t worked.

He intended to keep the man on his suspect list.

Eli looked up when he felt Ashlyn touch his arm, and he immediately saw the fresh concern in her eyes. He knew that she just wanted this to be over. So did he. But Remy was right about one thing. Eli did need to arrest the snake who kept putting them in danger. So far, they’d gotten lucky by getting away from the gunfire, but their luck might not hold out much longer.

Ashlyn kept her gaze on him, and after a few seconds, Eli didn’t think her expression was only one of concern. Well, it wasn’t solely about the attacks anyway. That worry was there all right, but there was also something else.

That I’m in love with you.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Ashlyn blurted out before Eli could broach that subject. “You don’t want me to be in love with you, and I get that. Believe me, I get it,” she added in a frustrated mumble. “If I could change how I feel about you, I would.”

Okay, that spelled it out for him. She wasn’t any happier about this than he was. But then she shook her head. “That’s not exactly true,” she amended. “I probably wouldn’t change things in the feelings department.”

“You should,” he insisted right off. “I’m bad news, Ashlyn. I can’t make the past go away.”

Her gaze came back to him, and she gave him a blank stare. “There were some good things in that past. And yes, I know it’s hard to see the good what with all the bad. I hung on to that bad for a very long time, blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault.” She stepped closer, laying her palm on his chest. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He wanted to believe that. Better yet, Eli wanted her to believe it, but the hurt would always be there.

And apparently so would the attraction.

Certain parts of his body took her touch as some sort of signal that more should happen to tap into that attraction. Eli was almost certain he could have resisted, almost, if Ashlyn hadn’t come up on her toes and put her mouth close to his. She didn’t actually kiss him.

So Eli kissed her.

Even though he knew there was a high chance of regretting this, Eli dragged her to him and finished what Ashlyn had started. And there it was. That kick of heat so strong that